John Baldwin
"On my first visit to the Tate in 1962 at the age of 16 I bought a postcard of a painting by Nicolas de Stael. I still have it. I went to America in 1964 and saw American painting for the first time, one of the few art students to have done so. This was the beginning of my fascination with painting. I have worked in acrylic for the past 25 years and about a year ago I started to work in oil paint by revisiting the first influences, particularly French painters of the 1950’s such as Riopelle and Soulages.
"I first started working in watercolour then I moved on to acrylics, all of which I made myself, thus giving my paintings their incredible detail. My influences were Sam Francis, Albert Irvin, John Hoyland and Hans Hoffman. John has devised his own secret method of mixing paints and laying them onto small square coloured canvases. The results have plenty of energy and texture, some say the small ‘blobs’ of colour look like tropical fish. Several canvases are put together to form bigger shapes but I think I prefer the single or smaller groups."
Individual abstract works, 20cm x 20cm, each costing £70